Grau-Garriga (Sant Cugat del Vallès, Spain, 1929 – Angers, France, 2011) is considered one of the most prominent pioneers of the innovative movement in contemporary textile art. Trained as a painter, he began his professional career as a muralist. His relationship with space and the natural, architectural, and social context – central throughout his creative journey – influenced the formal development of his textile creations. Starting from tapestry, he characterized his work by constantly transgressing and expanding all its parameters. Evolving early from the flat and confined format of traditional tapestry into sculptural and material transformations, and further into installation and participatory environments, which he extensively developed in the 1970s and 1980s. His work, exhibited in various editions of the historic Lausanne Biennale, the São Paulo Biennale, and more recently in the Sydney Biennale, is currently part of the collections of significant European and American museums.

Under the curation of Lala de Diós and Esther Grau, the exhibition “The Threads of Memory” includes a selected showcase of textile works created between 1972 and 1999, united by the theme of memory. This concept, which served as a central axis for the artist throughout his career and in his entire creative output, is explored here from both personal and collective perspectives. The dialogue between the tangible and the abstract, the permanent and the ephemeral, is reflected in both the symbolic and material aspects of these monumental works, highlighting the artist’s creative innovation within contemporary textile art.